Interviews

Ahed Tamimi became a worldwide symbol of Palestinian resistance after she slapped an Israeli soldier in front of her home in the occupied West Bank. Now in Part 2, Ahed is released from Israeli prison in a chaotic and emotional day. Dena Takruri sits down with the teen activist to discuss her experience in prison, her hopes for the future, and her thoughts on Palestinian resistance.

In the season premiere of Direct From, Dena Takruri heads to the occupied West Bank to meet the teenage girl who has become an icon of Palestinian resistance. The tiny Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, the birthplace of Ahed Tamimi, has been waging a sustained, nonviolent resistance movement against Israeli military rule for at least a decade. In the days before Ahed’s release from prison, Dena meets the family members and activists fighting for their freedom under occupation, and talks to the young generation of Palestinians about their dreams for the future.

Dena Takruri interviewed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez one day after she won the NY primary. The 28-year-old Latina from the Bronx ran on a platform of free college tuition and abolishing ICE – without any corporate money. She talked ICE, Israel/Palestine, and Medicare for all among other things.

Skid Row is a sprawling tent city in the heart of downtown Los Angeles where you’ll find thousands of people sleeping on the streets, diseases, no toilets, no food or water. AJ+’s Dena Takruri goes to ground zero of L.A.’s homelessness crisis to show the dire and shocking conditions residents live under.

AJ+’s Dena Takruri spends a day with Jose Guevara, a 23-year-old Salvadoran college student who recently relapsed with leukemia for the third time. He’s a DACA recipient, and his mother has temporary protected status, or TPS. The Trump administration has ended TPS, and if his mother has to leave the country, Jose will lose his insurance coverage.

Dena Takruri joined US Senator Bernie Sanders on a roundtable discussion along with with journalists from the leading social media news outlets, Ana Kasparian (co-host of The Young Turks), Versha Sharma (Senior Correspondent at NowThis), and Mike Vainisi (Head of Editorial at ATTN:) They discussed how social media has changed the way we get our news, how we can best utilize these changes to engage the American people in grassroots movements and the impact of net neutrality and media consolidation on the changing landscape.

In Spain, particularly in the contested Catalonia region, soccer is political. The country is home to the two top teams in the world, Football Club Barcelona, or “Barça,” and Real Madrid. Barça is a premier symbol of Catalan identity and pride, while Real Madrid is seen to represent the Spanish crown and Madrid’s rule over Catalonia. As the battle over Catalan independence hits crisis levels, AJ+’s Dena Takruri hangs out with Catalan soccer fans, for whom stadiums are a symbolic battleground over the future of this region.

Just two miles from where the Trump administration is drafting anti-refugee policies, a little Washington, DC, falafel shop is trying to do the opposite. AJ+’s Dena Takruri visits Falafel Inc., which donates a portion of its profits to feed refugees through the World Food Programme, and also hires and trains refugees to eventually open their own franchises.

Sun Mu once made propaganda art for the North Korean government. Now a defector, he creates art freely in South Korea. But his exhibit was banned in China, and he has to keep his identity concealed to protect the family he left behind. AJ+’s Dena Takruri sat down with him just as tensions between North Korea and the U.S. were heating up.

Houston-area Muslims’ mosques are either converted into hurricane shelters or are inaccessible due to road damage. So on the holiest holiday, Eid al-Adha, the thousands of these Muslims Americans prayed in a local high school.